Mr. Romney, America Did Not Fail; You Did

When I was a little kid, one of my big brothers turned to our mother with his big crazy grin and said, “Mom, we’re not crazy; it’s just the rest of the world.” Well, sadly that brother did kind of turn out a bit on the crazy side. Shhh. . . you didn’t hear that from me. But in defense of his young and silly self, when he said that he was joking.

Sadly, Mr. Mitt Romney is not a child, and he is not joking, but he is blaming the rest of America (and who knows, in his heart and head, maybe the rest of the world too). According to Huffington Post, he’s beating his 47% drum again, and instead of learning from his failure, and taking it like a man, he’s doing the childish thing and blaming his failure to win the election on America, saying that President Obama won by giving them “gifts.”

I’ll let you read the Huff Post article yourself for the details, but it truly is just one more example of how out of touch Romney and the most radical of the “Conservatives” are. Rush, Coulter, Trump, O’Reilly and the other kids in the Republican playhouse are all in a big snit this week, some throwing tantrums, others moping in depression about how this election loss is the fault of everyone else but themselves.

I’m pretty sure however, that their mothers, like my own wise mamma, taught them better than this. Every mother worth the title teaches her children how to lose with dignity, and how to grow and be better for the experience. You own up to it. You patch up your skinned knees, wipe your tears and take responsibility for your failure. This is the grown up approach, not the sort of spoiled, pouty-faced finger pointing that we are seeing from the right.

What’s more, a truly grown up approach would be to re-evaluate your performance, honestly assess whether you could have done anything better, and then put what you’ve learned from such reflection into practice, and move on. It doesn’t necessarily mean you need to give up on the values that put you on the side of the conflict you were in, though it just might, especially if the reality (or mathematics) turn out to contradict all you thought was true. But even if after honest self evaluation, you remain true to your original convictions, you still have to learn from your failure. Blaming others was not allowed in my house.

The reality is that the majority of Americans, nearly 53% (think about that math, Mr. Romney. Does it remind you of something?) decided that the ideas put forth by the so-called conservatives in this nation’s leadership were not the right ideas for paving a path forward. We are not looking for handouts, but for looking for a fair shot. A leader who made the majority of his fortune by “harvesting profits” (his words) from failing companies, laying off workers and sending jobs overseas, was not the sort of man we wanted in the White House. We voted for education and job growth, and we wanted it from a man who not only has a plan, but has a heart and the courage to lead.

Mr. Romney, you couldn’t even get your own numbers right, following polls that just didn’t make mathematical or demographic sense; how can we really have expected you to be capable of grappling with the complexity of numbers in an entire nation’s economy? And even if we thought you capable of fixing the deficit, the nation needs a balance of business sense and leadership that recognizes that a nation is made up, not just of numbers and dollars, but more importantly of people. And as much as our economy is limping (slowly in the right direction, by all accounts but yours), the old methods of giving tax breaks to those who don’t need them just didn’t make sense to us, especially not while increasing the tax burden on the middle class, and the financial burden on the general public by denouncing the importance of the investment in health care and education.

Not to be too snarky, Governor, but we wanted a president who was willing to invest in our teachers, our students, our firefighters and police officers, our workers, not just in the stock market, big banks and off-shore accounts. We frankly didn’t trust you. We didn’t trust that you had our best interests at heart.

We do believe in responsibility, sir and that includes a responsibility for each other. We are insulted and unimpressed by your accusations. You have chosen, like my brother once did to blame everyone else but yourself. Sure, Mr. Romney, you and the Right wing entertainment industry, you’re not crazy, it’s just the rest of America. Right.

Republicans play the blame game over “vulture capitalist” comments. Are you sure it was Obama who started that?

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Romney . Heart ? What heart ? People like Mr Romney are emotionally stunted. They can never realise empathy. Full Stop. Reminds me of the lines from Casablanca. Bogart: Do as I say or I am going to shoot you , right now, in the heart. Airport Official : Go ahead. That’s my least vulnerable spot . !!

Entitled. Yes, that’s a very good point. They feel entitled to being in the position of white, wealthy, powerful people. Yet, they are the ones who are accusing people like you and I of feeling entitled. Funny. It reminds me of a guilty child, who by accusing someone else before his misdeed is found out, tries to deflect blame and take the attention off of his own crime.

Yes, and even Coulter and Rush and the lot of them, from the depressed and bewildered “news” clips I’ve seen this week. Heck Ann C. sounded like she had been crying before going on the air on radio this weekend. They are all upset with fellow conservative (moderate) David Frum for calling them a part of the “right wing entertainment industry.” But that’s what they are. We need to stop thinking of most of these extremists as news people. Hell, I knew Beck didn’t have anything to do with journalism the first time I saw one of his whiney, cry baby speeches on TV. Fox was smart to oust him. But they have a lot more cleaning to do. Carl Rove would be a good one to toss out too.

Yesterday I overheard this conversation:
A woman walks up to two Mormon missionaries. “Who are you?” [gesturing at their nametags]
“We’re representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”
“Well, why couldn’t you get Mitt elected?”
“Ma’am, I’m Canadian.”